The present invention relates to improvements in feeding cigarettes through hoppers or other similar containers. The invention will be described throughout with reference to cigarettes only, but it is to be understood that the scope of the invention includes methods and apparatus of the type claimed for feeding any rod-shaped articles.
During the process of packaging cigarettes, it is often necessary to feed the cigarettes through a hopper of the type generally associated with a cigarette packaging machine. Cigarettes are generally fed into the top of the hopper from a tray or Overhead Storage Conveyor And Reservoir (O.S.C.A.R.) Unit (e.g., Molins Limited Model Nos. 1, 2 or 3) and descend in a generally vertical direction into and through the hopper. The cigarettes are withdrawn from the hopper for packaging through a plurality of channels or vanes at the base of the hopper.
In the tray or O.S.C.A.R. Unit and in the hopper, the cigarettes are positioned so that their longitudinal axes are aligned with each other. However, while the cigarettes are being transported to the cigarette packing machine in the tray or as the cigarettes are descending from a tray into and through the hopper, some of the cigarettes can become turned perpendicular or otherwise skewed in relation to the correctly positioned cigarettes so that their longitudinal axes are no longer aligned with the correctly positioned cigarettes. These mispositioned cigarettes descend within the flow of correctly positioned cigarettes and cause jams or blockages of cigarettes in the area of the vanes at the base of the hopper.
Some of the mispositioned cigarettes block or jam the vanes of the hopper by falling across the agitator rods of the hopper. This, in turn, causes a void or area in the hopper in which there are no cigarettes. As cigarettes are withdrawn through the vanes at the base of hopper, other cigarettes tend to fall into such void and cause more cigarettes to become skewed, thus creating more blockages and jams of cigarettes in the area of the vanes of the hopper.
Other mispositioned cigarettes, which have become broken, can also block or fall into and jam the vanes or otherwise disrupt the proper flow of cigarettes through the hopper and vanes. In order to clear such blockages or jams from the vanes, the operator of the cigarette packing machine must stop the machine and remove the mispositioned cigarettes with tweezers or another suitable device. During the clearing process, the vanes, which are usually made of thin sheet metal, are often damaged by the tweezers and require replacement. This causes additional downtime of the machine.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for straightening cigarettes that have become partially skewed with respect to the correctly positioned cigarettes in the hopper. It would also be desirable to provide a method and apparatus for removing from the flow of correctly positioned cigarettes those cigarettes that have become skewed to a greater extent or turned perpendicular with respect to the correctly positioned cigarettes in the hopper. Such a method and apparatus would avoid the blockage and jamming of the vanes at the base of the hopper caused by mispositioned cigarettes. It would also avoid damage caused to the vanes of the hopper during the clearing process.